orms of monstrous
character, combinations of both even, impended everywhere about him. He
became afraid lest he might stumble, as Skale had done, on the very note
that should release them and bring them howling, leaping, crashing about
his ears. Therefore, he tried to make himself as small as possible; he
muffled steps and voice and personality. If he could, he would have
completely disappeared.

He looked forward to Skale's return, but when evening came he was still
alone, and he dined _tete-a-tete_ with Miriam for the first time. And
she, too, he noticed, was unusually quiet. Almost they seemed to have
entered the world of Mrs. Mawle, the silent regions of the deaf. But for
the most part it is probable that these queer impressions were due to the
unusual state of Spinrobin's imagination. He knew that it was his last
night in the place--unless the clergyman accepted him; he knew also that
Mr. Skale had absented himself with a purpose, and that the said purpose
had to do with the test of Alteration of Forms by Sound, which would
surely be upon him before the sun rose. So that, one way and another, it
was natural enough that his nerves should have been somewhat overtaxed.

The presence of Miriam and Mrs. Mawle, however, did much to soothe him.
The latter, indeed, mothered the pair of them quite absurdly, smiling all
the time while she moved about softly with the dishes, and doing her best
to make them eat enough for four. Between courses she sat at the end of
the room, waiting in the shadows till Miriam beckoned to her, and once or
twice going so far as to put her hand upon Spinrobin's shoulder
protectively.

His own mind, however, all the time was full of charging visions. He kept
thinking of the month just past and of the amazing changes it had brought
into his thoughts. He realized, too, now that Mr. Skale was away,
something of the lonely and splendid courage of the man, following this
terrific, perhaps mad, ideal, day in day out, week in week out, for
twenty years and more, his faith never weakening, his belief undaunted.
Waves of pity, too, invaded him for the first time--pity for this sweet
girl, brought up in ignorance of any other possible world; pity for the
deaf old housekeeper, already partially broken, and both sacrificed to
the dominant idea of this single, heaven-climbing enthusiast; pity last
of all for himself, swept headlong before he had time to reflect, into
the audacious purpose of this violent and